March 24, 2008

IT'S ALIVE (1969) OPENING TITLES (FEATURING LAND OF KONG)

In my recent Dinosaur World post I mentioned that the park (known as Land of Kong in its early days) appeared in the first few minutes of It's Alive (1969). Well, here are those very minutes, immediately available for your eyes in the form of moving colored pixels. As you will see, the scaffolding is still present around a couple of the dinosaurs indicating that the footage was shot in the earliest days of the attraction (maybe even before it was open to the public). About 80% of the rest of the feature takes place in nearby Onyx cave which is still open to the public. If I would have seen this film before I toured that cave years ago I would have appreciated it about a thousand times more.

4 comments:

I was a kid who loved monster movies, and from about the age of 7 I started collecting books and magazines about film monsters. I had heard about a movie called It's Alive, which had a man-eating monster baby in it, and from that moment I really, really wanted to see it.

I was about 11 when read in our local Detroit TV guide that It's Alive was going to be on the cleverly titled Saturday Night Dead. Saturday Night Dead followed directly after SNL on our NBC affiliate, and featured horror movies.

I was excited to finally see the infamous man-eating baby, and thankfully I had parents that didn't mind me staying up late on a non-school night.

Do you realize how hard it is for a kid to stay up that late? We're talking about a movie show that ran from 1am to 3am here, and we didn't own a VCR yet.

To sophisticated adult eyes it's pretty clear from the opening titles that It's Alive 1969 is not a movie featuring a man-eating baby, but I was a ignorant kid, and the titles read "It's Alive" so I was sure I'd be see some man-eating baby action soon.

I struggle to stay awake thru this boring, cheap-o film, only to be rewarded by the sight of the super phony cave monster. The cave monster was like a dime store version of the Gill Man, and had what looked to be ping-pong balls for eyes and soda straws for teeth.

After the end credits ran I had one of the most intense feelings of confusion I've had in my entire life. I stayed up thru the entire movie fully expecting the man-eating baby to make it's appearance at any minute.

It was a year or two later when I learned there were two movies titled It's Alive, and it was It's Alive 1974 which featured the baby.

You may already know this, but theres another connection between this film and The Land of Kong. Its director, Larry Buchanan also made two movies with John Agar. And speaking of John Agar, I now think its HIM whos guarding the park and NOT the monster from ITS ALIVE! I know everybody says hes dead, but he "died" once already in the 70s and turned out to be still alive. I think he faked his second death so he can better protect vacant dinosaur parks the world over.

By the way, I know there are a few missing apostrophes in this comment, but Blogger(or maybe John Agar)wouldnt let me put them in.

David- I LOVED your story! Made me laugh aloud. That is just pure childhood through and through. The investment you made, the high expectations you had and I love the hopefulness you kept until the very end of the film! Classic. Thanks for sharing.

psco- thanks; yours is very interesting too!

flashfink- I could see John talking Larry into shooting at his attraction thinking it would amount to great publicity. I just wonder why he wasn't in the picture.Ha! I had no idea he faked his own death. That is awesome.